Leftist NGO Slams Israel Over Hunger Striking Terrorists

The leftist Physicians for Human Rights claims that Israel's treatment of hunger-striking terrorist prisoners is an "ethical failure".

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Elad Benari, 18/02/13 01:15

Prisoners in Ofer jail (archive)

Israel News photo: Flash 90

An Israeli leftist organization slammed the Jewish State’s treatment of four hunger-striking terrorist prisoners as an "ethical failure" on Sunday, AFP reports.

The NGO, Physicians for Human Rights, also claimed that the rights of the four hunger strikers were being violated.

A statement from the Tel Aviv-based organization said that the fasting prisoners were denied visits from independent doctors and manacled during hospital checkups.

"Physicians views with extreme gravity the fact that the rights of the hunger strikers are being violated time and again by various authorities, whose representatives act against the law, regulations, international conventions and medical ethics," it said, according to AFP.

"This is a systemic moral, ethical and professional failure," it added.

Physicians for Human Rights is one of several NGOs that were named in a report by the NGO Monitor research institute two weeks ago as receiving millions of dollars annually from foreign governments.

The European Union Court of Justice confirmed several months ago that the EU fails to act transparently in its funding of NGOs, including Physicians for Human Rights.

The group’s attacking of Israel was the latest in a chorus of protests from around the world about the condition of hunger-strikers Tareq Qaadan, Jafar Ezzedine, Ayman Sharawna and especially Samer Issawi, who has been fasting the longest.

On Saturday, the same EU which funds these leftist NGOs called for Israel's "full respect of international human rights obligations towards all Palestinian detainees and prisoners."

The statement came from EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who in the past seemed to suggest in a statement that PA Arabs have the right to throw stones at security forces during non-violent protests.

A day earlier International Quartet envoy Tony Blair said in a statement that he was "concerned about the deteriorating health condition of the four prisoners, one of whom has been on a hunger strike for over 200 days."

PA Arab terrorist prisoners have turned hunger striking into a pressure tactic aimed at forcing Israel to release them out of fear for their lives.

Israel has several times in the past caved to the pressure and released some hunger strikers.

On Tuesday, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas called on the international community to intervene urgently in support of the hunger striking prisoners, warning that “things may get out of control” if it does not intervene.

The PA-based group Adameer said on Sunday that hunger striker Sharawna is one of several prisoners released in the 2011 prisoner exchange deal for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.

Sharawna is one of several terrorists who were rearrested by Israel after their release because they resumed their terror activities.

Gaza's Hamas terrorist rulers said on Sunday that by putting freed prisoners back behind bars, Israel was reneging on the Shalit deal.

"Hamas condemns the Israeli decision concerning the agreement on the exchange of prisoners," the group's spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement quoted by AFP.